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LOCAL JOTTINGS.— No. 1. 

 MONTGOMERY— NORTH WALES. 



BY JOHX MATTHEW JONES, ESQ., OF THE MIDDLE TEMPLE. 



I CAN safely say that there is no prettier spot in England than our little 

 town of Montgomery, situated on the slope of a hill, and environed on all 

 sides by oak woods, rippling brooks, and ^'sunny banks whereon the wild 

 thyme grows;" no hour of the day passes by, wherein some fact may not be 

 ascertained in the various departments of that most entertaining of all pursuits 

 — Natural History. 



Above the town rises a high groimd, known by the name of the "Town 

 Hill." In the southern parts of England it would be called a vast mountain, 

 for from its highest point can be distinctly seen the outskirts of five or six 

 countiea To the north-west, mountains rise over mountains in slow gradation, 

 until the eye rests upon the lofty summits of Plinlimmon and far-famed Cader 

 Idris. On a very fine and clear day, Snowdonia's grand range may bo dis- 

 cerned, mingled with the blue haze of the far distant horizon. On the hill 

 immediately over the town, and almost hid from sight by old trees, their 

 trunks grown hoary and covered with moss, stand the last remnants of Mont- 

 gomery Castle, so well known in days of yore as an almost impregnable 

 fortress. Many a stalwart Welsh chieftain has caroused within those walls, 

 which now, ivy-grown, afford shelter to the noisy Jackdaw. 



A little further to the north-west, and only separated from the old Castle 

 by a wide gorge, stands another hill, on which remain the foundations of an 

 extensive encampment, supposed to be the stronghold of the English when 

 they made their several attacks on the Castle in the days of the Common- 

 wealth. On the side of this hill, and nearly opposite the Castle, has been 

 planted, within the last few years, a fir plantation, of about seven or eight 

 acres in extent, which, together with the hill at the top, is called the ^^Freethe;" 

 the young trees are now about twelve feet high, and have become so inter- 

 mingled with furze and brambles, that it is perfectly impossible for any human 

 being to force his way into the plantation, for not only would he have all 

 his clothes torn from his back, but he would also run a good chance of 

 getting a bite from an adder, of which there are numbers hereabouts. It is 

 in this little wood, safe fi'om the marauding hand of the bird-nesting boy, that 

 whole multitudes of Thrushes, Blackbirds, Linnets, Finches, and other small birds? 

 make their nests, and rear their young, and if any enthusiastic ornithologist 

 were to sit on the hill just above this wood on a summer's evening, and 

 hear the hundreds of Thrushes and Blackbirds singing their "vesper hymn," 

 his thoughts would immediately become wrapt in delicious reverie, at the 

 magnificence of these sylvan sounds. 



About a quarter of a mile to the west of this again, and a little below 

 the Town Hill, there is a large wood of oak and fir, sprinkled with beech, 

 having a good underwood of furze and bramble. In this wood you may 



VOL. II. 2 E 



